


But How Better for a God to Die

by TrickPhotography



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Comics)
Genre: Based on the Jason Aaron comics, Darcy trying her best to support her friend, Found Family, Gen, Jane Foster is Mighty Thor, My humble attempt to show how Darcy can easily come into Thor: Love and Thunder, Read the comics guys they are amazing, Warning - character has cancer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:15:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24293449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrickPhotography/pseuds/TrickPhotography
Summary: Look, it wasn’t like Darcy Lewis had never contemplated mortality.Sure, when she was a young, innocent, and care free Political Science super senior just looking to get those last six science credits to get the fuck out of college, death hadn’t exactly been something she thought about on the regular. Life at Culver had been safe and the collective mindset of college aged immortality had been infectious.(Even after the Hulk made his debut on the university green)But later? When she’d seen a giant fucking flame throwing robot drop from the sky and nearly take out a small town? Saw aliens appear out of the clear blue sky in New York City AND Greenwich? You start to realize that ol’ Benji Franklin may have been right about the whole certainty of death and taxes.Anyways, Darcy was pretty sure she’d die in some world ending event.She hadn’t thought about cancer when she’d contemplated mortality.And she hadn’t thought about it coming for Jane.
Relationships: Jane Foster & Darcy Lewis, past Jane Foster/Thor - Relationship
Comments: 6
Kudos: 38





	But How Better for a God to Die

  
  


Look, it wasn’t like Darcy Lewis had never contemplated mortality.

Sure, when she was a young, innocent, and care free Political Science super senior just looking to get those last six science credits to get the fuck out of college, death hadn’t exactly been something she thought about on the regular. Life at Culver had been safe and the collective mindset of college aged immortality had been infectious.

(Even after the Hulk made his debut on the university green)

But later? When she’d seen a giant fucking flame throwing robot drop from the sky and nearly take out a small town? Saw aliens appear out of the clear blue sky in New York City AND Greenwich? You start to realize that ol’ Benji Franklin may have been right about the whole certainty of death and taxes.

So with the evidence on hand - anecdotal, of course - she fell for the whole availability heuristic thing they’d talked about when she’d flirted with being a Psychology major. That was the one where you based the likelihood of something happening on how easily you thought of it.

Example: you think you’re more likely to be eaten by a shark when coconuts kill more people annually.

Or how you’re more likely to die by choking on a pretzel than in an alien invasion.

(I mean, she’d lived through three of them but ate pretzels way more often)

(Was it actually that she’d survived four, or was it three and she’d died in one? The whole Snappening thing seriously fucked up her count)

Anyways, the availability heuristic. Darcy was pretty sure she’d die in some world ending event.

She hadn’t thought about cancer when she’d contemplated mortality.

And she hadn’t thought about it coming for Jane.

After her Nobel nomination, Jane was a hot commodity in the Physics world. Her star had definitely risen after the whole Thor situation, but the Nobel? She was UY Scuti.

(See – she’d learned something while working with her. Not everyone could drop the name of the largest star in the universe)

(The whole Nobel process was supposed to be hella secretive but apparently people were pissed that she didn’t win after she PROVED THEORETICAL ASTROPHYSICS TO BE FACT and leaked her nomination to the press fifty years early. To say the Royal Swedish Academy of Science was pissed was a bit of an understatement)

So Jane did what she did best - tried to ignore the situation and bury herself in work. It wasn’t until Darcy had come to visit her at the Culver lab to escape the soul sucking work of DC politics that she realized the extent of her international appeal.

(A bunch of universities had come a callin’ after they’d gotten back from London but Jane had gone back to Culver. Darcy was torn between reluctantly supporting her even though it meant Janie was a big fish in a tiny pond, and being hella impressed by the boss bitch move of returning as a world renown physicist to a department that had shit on her work as a post-doc)

(Jane could be fucking petty when she wanted to be)

The whole break up with Thor hadn’t helped, either.

Distance was a problem for a lot of couples, but it was even harder when you couldn’t pick up a phone or Skype.

(Asgard still hadn’t figured out the whole wifi thing - and they thought humans weren’t advanced)

After one too many months without a word, Jane ended it. They said it was mutual, but the kicked puppy look on Thor’s face when he’d come to say goodbye - that he didn’t know the next time he’d be on Midgard - had told Darcy everything she needed to know.

So long story short, Darcy had thrown herself into being Jane’s unofficial personal assistant. It saved her from thinking she’d wasted five years of her life on a degree as she worked at a call center and the local mall to pay the bills while she focused on making her way up the food chain at a voter registration non-profit.

(That piece of paper was so fucking expensive. But at least she’d gotten some important contacts and Janie out of the situation)

(She tried not to hear her mother’s voice asking what exactly a person could do with a Political Science degree, and couldn’t she go into something like nursing which was a guaranteed good paying job?)

(It was harder to drown out whenever she dared to look into the void that was her student loan debt, and compared it to her meger savings account. Thank god for income based repayment plans and public service loan forgiveness - only six more miserable years to go!)

Jane, bless her, hadn’t realized what Darcy was doing until she was holding an offer letter to be a visiting scholar at Cambridge that was literally right in front of her face.

They packed up and moved back to England, and Darcy added a new line to her resume - Administrative Assistant.

(It changed to Lab Manager once they got there and realized that Jane would be working with more people than she was used to, none of whom were used to her system)

Darcy took advantage of cheap travel and spent her weekends wandering across Europe.

(Hello £30 flights to Switzerland!)

Which was why she was in Reykjavik when half the world disappeared.

Finding out that you missed five years of your life was…

Fucked up. There was no easy way to say it. It’s fucked up, and too god damn weird. In a blink of an eye, you’re suddenly in your 30s without getting to experience the joy/tragedy of the end of your 20s.

It was even worse when you’re stuck in a foreign country without anyone you know, unable to call or get in touch with someone because the phone lines are overwhelmed.

(Having to dive out of the way of a car also sucks, but a badly scraped arm and leg was better than those poor people who had appeared in the middle of the sky and fell to their deaths after reappearing without a plane there to catch them)

But the whole resurrected from the dead thing also brought some perspective.

Like your relationship with your parents might not always be the best, but you still love them and will cry like a baby when you hear their voice.

And that even though you had major ideological differences with someone (and thought he was kind of a pompous dick the one time you met him, and took great pleasure in telling him that no - Jane wasn’t interested in working in his science division), hearing that Tony Stark sacrificed himself to bring everyone back made you realize he was just trying to be a good man despite his flaws.

(Seeing Pepper Potts with their daughter and Steve Rogers at the worldwide memorial service was heartbreaking. She made a mental plan to visit the monuments dedicated to Tony and Natasha Romanoff as soon as she got back stateside)

(It didn’t, however, make her any less pissed that the fucking government wouldn’t work with her on her student loans and make it so she only had one year left to pay - apparently the whole ceasing to exist thing didn’t excuse missed payments, and coming back meant that she couldn’t qualify to have them written off in the case of death)

It also made her take a better look at her health. Darcy was never going to be a marathon runner, but she bought a super sports bra (seriously, the review that called it THE AEGIS OF BOOBANIA and THE BRA OF THE ONE TRUE QUEEN OF BOOBISTAN had sold it) and regretted life as she started jogging.

(She probably should have done that after the first alien invasion)

And she started to floss regularly.

(She didn’t actually claim to be a functioning adult, alright?)

And look, no one really enjoys awkward boob palpating followed by putting their feet in the stirrups and being told to “scooch right to the end of the table” to put your vag in someone’s face (unless you have a medical kink and there was a promise of an orgasm - no judgement) but those well woman exams were necessary.

Jane reluctantly joined her on this new, healthier lifestyle.

Which is why they found the lump.

Breast cancer.

The words fell like a stone, and Darcy wasn’t able to look at Jane for a long time. Couldn’t hear anything beyond the ringing in her ears.

It wasn’t about her, Darcy reminded herself over and over again as they packed up the flat.

(Jane wanted to go back to New York City where she’d grown up)

There was nothing she could have done to keep it from happening

(She’d been gone for five years, leaving Jane alone)

(It didn’t stop her from feeling like she’d failed her best friend)

The Stark Industries Science Division found a spot for them, and allowed Jane to work when she felt well enough.

She started chemo and the amount of time they worked tanked.

Seeing your best friend, the closest person you have to a sister, suffer like that was like a punch to the gut.

(She’d prefer to take a punch to the gut to save her from that)

Darcy made sure that she had a smile on her face whenever she saw Jane, and did her best to keep her mood up.

(So many living room dance parties)

When her hair started to fall out, Darcy offered to shave hers off in solidarity, but Jane only laughed and shook her head, reaching over to gently tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.

(She crawled into bed with Jane after they shaved hers off and held her while she cried)

They only had one fight.

Darcy stormed out of their apartment and got drunk, trying to block out the words that echoed in her ears.

“When are you going to accept that I might die?”

She’d felt a flicker of hope that maybe they were saved when the news that Thor was back spread.

No matter how things ended, Darcy knew that he cared. That he loved Janie and would take her to Asgard and make sure she got better.

He had to.

It wasn’t him.

It was Mjolnir, but the person holding the hammer wasn’t Thor.

Even as she celebrated the rise of a kick ass new female hero, panic made Darcy’s heart stop.

Where was Thor?

Who would help Jane?

Odinson showed up at the apartment on a night that Jane was at the hospital, dropped off by the Guardians.

When she called him Thor, demanding to know who the chick with his hammer was, he hung his head and wiped away the tears that clung to his beard.

For the second time, he had been deemed unworthy.

She was Thor.

He was Odinson.

And he wanted his hammer back.

She wasn’t getting better.

The cancer wasn’t shrinking.

Jane Foster - the brilliant, funny, beautiful woman who couldn’t drink more than three margaritas before getting shit faced - was going to die.

And leave Darcy alone.

“Hey! You!”

Thor paused. Mjolnir stopped spinning and fell to her side, and she turned to look at her. Darcy took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. It had taken too long for her to find this woman and she wasn’t going to waste her opportunity.

“Look, I know you don’t know me and I don’t know you, but I’m friends with Thor - the one before you. And I need your help for my friend, Jane Foster. She’s - ”

“I know of Jane Foster.”

Darcy’s eyes widened as the blonde Viking spoke, and then waved a hand. “Yeah, of course - the whole former future Queen of Asgard thing.” She thought she saw Thor’s lip twitch with a suppressed smile. “Anyways - she needs your help. She’s got… she has cancer and it’s not… ” Darcy gulped and quickly wiped away the tears that fell. “The chemo’s not working. So I need you to take her to Asgard and get your healers to fix her.”

Thor frowned and shook her head. “I cannot.”

Darcy’s jaw dropped before despair was quickly replaced with anger. “You have to - you owe her that much, damn it!” she yelled, pointing at the other woman. “She was the one that helped Thor stop Loki! And she helped him stop the Convergence and kill Malekith! All you have to do is have Heimdell bring her there!”

“I cannot.”

They stared at one another as Darcy bit her lower lip hard enough to draw blood. “Please?”

Her voice broke. She buried her face in her hands and started to sob.

There was a rustling of fabric and the light clinking of metal, and then there was a hand on her shoulder. “I would bring her to Asgard to repay this debt, were I able. But I am an outcast - unwelcome amongst those who could help her.”

“But you’re Thor.” Her lips twisted into a wry smile, and Darcy imagined an annoyed expression behind her masked face.

“Aye - the Mighty Thor. But there are those who believe me unworthy to wield Mjolnir and refuse me.” Fingers lightly swept a strand of hair behind Darcy’s ear before trailing down her cheek to tip her chin up. “Jane Foster is lucky to have a friend as fierce as you, Darcy Lewis.”

Thor took a step back and Mjolnir began to spin, and then they were gone.

It wasn’t until she was on the train home that she realized that she hadn’t told Thor her name.

Darcy tried to confront Thor again and managed it a handful of times, but it was always the same result.

She couldn’t help Jane, but hoped she would get better. And that she was lucky to have Darcy.

(It wasn't good enough)

Whenever Odinson was with her, she could never get near the Goddess of Thunder. He was trying to figure out her identity, hoping to reclaim his hammer and title, but she seemed to know whenever he was close.

(Did Thor let her find her?)

It happened by accident.

Sick of the antiseptic smell, she’d left the hospital to get a cup of coffee down the street while Jane packed up her things and took a shower before they headed home. She’d stopped outside the building and tilted her head back to take a deep lungful of exhaust fumes in preparation to go back into the sterile environment, and opened her eyes to see a glint of light.

Darcy shaded her eyes and tried to get a closer look at the metallic object about twenty stories above her. Her stomach swooped when she realized it was a hammer.

Mjolnir rose higher and disappeared.

Moments later, Thor launched herself off of the building and there was a faint boom of thunder.

Darcy rushed into the hospital to tell Jane what she’d seen and felt her heart stop when her room was empty. On her second visual sweep, she saw the note on the roll away table and snatched it up.

Took a taxi home. See you there.

It was past ten when Jane finally stumbled into the apartment, exhaustion written across her face, and muttered something about going for a walk when Darcy demanded to know where she’d been.

“It’s like the chemo’s not even in your system,” the oncologist sighed. “We can try a more aggressive treatment…”

Darcy wasn’t an idiot.

The rational part of her brain, however, had some trouble reconciling the emaciated, sickly woman who tried to retch quietly after a treatment with the blonde goddess who called down lightning.

(She regretted not following her mom’s advice to go into nursing when she heard Jane and could do nothing but hand her flat ginger ale and crackers)

But that’s what she was starting to do. After all, Mjolnir brought Thor back from the brink of death in a New Mexico desert.

The hammer clearly had some sort of power. But then, if Jane was Thor (and she wasn’t totally convinced that she was, or wasn’t for that matter), why wasn’t it killing the cancer?

Odinson provided the answer as they ran through a list of women who could be deemed worthy.

(She kept her suspicions to herself)

(He kept Natasha’s name on the list)

“So long as one wields Mjolnir, they have its protection against all foes.”

In bed that night, she’d tried to figure out why the hammer wouldn’t heal Jane.

And when the realization finally clicked, she turned to muffle her tears in her pillow.

Jane didn’t wield Mjolnir all the time. Usually, she was just Jane - bad ass astrophysicist.

But when she did…

Chemotherapy was a drug designed to kill cells.

It was a poison.

A foe.

Mjolnir defeated the very thing that was trying to save Jane’s life.

“You have to stop.”

Jane raised her bleary eyes from her coffee and frowned. “I’m allowed to drink - ”

“You can’t be her anymore, Janie. She’s killing you.”

Jane refused to meet her gaze as she reached under the beanie Darcy had knit her to scratch her bald head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Darce. I’m gonna go lay down.”

The cancer metastasized.

The Mighty Thor continued to save the city.

Darcy tried to make her friend realize Jane’s life was more important than Thor’s. There were other heroes.

There was only one Jane Foster.

She’d been at the lab late, collating the latest numbers from the Stark deep space satellite. She hated leaving Jane alone on treatment days, but she’d wanted the data as a distraction from the drugs slowly dripping into her veins.

The laptop bumped against her hip, crammed into the bag that carried her knitting. The blanket she was working on was finally getting to a length where it draped nicely over her lap as she worked on it, protecting her against the icy hospital temperature.

She smiled and waved at the night nurses, now familiar faces after so long together.

Jane’s door was closed and she knocked lightly before pushing it open.

The lights were off.

The room was empty.

Overhead, there was a muffled boom of thunder.

Darcy closed her eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been thinking about this fic for two years, since I picked up the Jason Aaron comics. I love the whole Jane as Mighty Thor, and now as Valkyrie run. Highly recommend reading them. 
> 
> Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this. It's different than my usual writing style - a bit more stream of conscious than I usually do but I like it.
> 
> (Also, the bra review is an actual one my friend found on a Lane Bryant sports bra that she swears by)


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